CIA

“ The partition disrupted the Korean economy because most of the mineral ores and most of the modern economic infrastructure that Japan had developed were in the north. Lacking an industrial base, the largely agricultural South needed massive foreign economic aid to survive. The South Koreans felt that the United States, having participated in the division of the country, was responsible for supporting them. The United States, therefore, was obliged to shoulder the burden of supporting the less naturally endowed but more populous South. ”

“ Within the well-defined confines of their peninsula the ancient Koreans developed a distinct and remarkable uniformity of physique, language, and culture that clearly sets them apart from their neighbors. With few resident foreigners and no minorities, the Koreans, North and South, constitute perhaps the most homogenous of the major ethnic groups possessing independent (if divided) statehood today. Numbering almost 50 million, the Koreans are the 13th largest ethnic group in the world today. ”

“ By and large, the government has not been coercive and has carried out its economic plans pragmatically and with deft flexibility. The South Koreans like to look to West Germany as an example of the successful survival of a divided country; they point with pride to their own "Miracle on the Han." (The Han River is the "Korean Rhine" and the nation's main inland waterway.)
South Korea achieved an economic breakthrough in the mid-1960's which has basically altered the economy. ”

“ The strong paternalistic and authoritarian traditions of Korean governments, continued by the Japanese and to a remarkable degree by Rhee, inculcated a master-servant relationship between people and government. There had been little or no opportunity for political parties or even interest groups to mature and compromise. Neither has there been any sizable middle class with the interest, training, and opportunity to participate in public affairs. ”

“ Pak's curbing of the DRP is in keeping with his careful control over all his former comrades-in-arms occupying positions of power. The military constitute the only force which could conceivably mount a successful threat to his authority under present conditions, and many ex-officers are well entrenched in office. Some of them have also built up private fortunes through bribery and corruption, thus flouting Pak's strictures. Officers on active duty are still prone to Korea's endemic factionalism. ”

“ Despite Korea's internal and external woes, the very high level of artistic expression achieved during the Silla dynasty was revived and developed in both the Koryo and Yi eras, during which Korea made some noteworthy contributions to world culture. In ceramics, Korean artists elaborated on Chinese styles and techniques, passing them on to Japan, and made an original contribution to coloring in the blues and greens of Korea's unique celadon ware. ”

“ Although the British and Japanese, fearing the establishment of Russian control of the Korea Strait and the entrance to the Yellow Sea, jointly blocked the Russian move, Russia continued to pursue its ambitions. The Japanese ultimately responded by launching a surprise attack in February 1904 on the Russian fleet. Engagements were fought off the Korean coasts and Japan made full use of Korea as a base of operations, despite Korea's declaration of neutrality. After Russia's defeat in 1905, Korea became a Japanese protectorate, and in 1910 it was annexed and became part of the Japanese Empire. ”

“ During the period of Japanese administration, the Korean economy was developed essentially as a complement to the Japanese economy. A substantial industrial complex developed in the northern part of the country based largely on local raw materials and power, but the southern part remained heavily agrarian in character and developed only a thin veneer of small-scale industry. The material benefits from such development, however, were largely monopolized by the Japanese. In manufacturing, for example, 90% of the capital and 80% of the skilled labor were Japanese ”

“ The group of junior officers who brought Pak Chong-hui to power in 1961 had no political program other than to weed out corruption and accelerate economic modernization. They claimed they were only carrying through the unfinished business of the student revolution of the previous year to save Korean democracy from corrupt, inefficient, older-generation politicians. However, they felt the need for an ideology more attuned to the modern world by compatible with the Confucian heritage, with which Pak and most of his associates are still deeply imbued. ”

“ Despite such occasional blighting of native Korean innovations by the overwhelming prestige of Chinese civilization, the Koreans developed a rich, vigorous, and quite distinct culture of their own.
In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Korea experienced renwed foreign invasions. In 1592 the Japanese launched a full-scale invasion as part of an ambitious plan to conquer China. The Koreans suffered great reverses and the country was ravaged, but Chinese aid and the death of the Japanese ruler, Hideyoshi, saved them. ”

“ No direct attack has been mounted on the concept of popular, democratic government, and a facade of constitutional forms has been maintained. Despite the abuses of democratic forms under President Syngman Rhee, and the subsequent failure of Korea's closest approach to democracy under Rhee's immediate successor, the ideal of democratic government is not discredited. Korea's history and political experience, however, provide a poor base for nurturing democracy. ”

“ The South is almost as mountainous as the North, with the major mountain chain running along the east coast and sending a spur southwestward down the middle of the peninsula. Hilly or mountainous terrain takes up at least three-fourths of the country's area. Offshore South Korea has more than 600 inhabited islands, several of them 60 miles or more at sea; the largest and most important of all is Cheju-do, a separate province in the East China Sea. ”

“ In the military realm, South Korea is still heavily dependent on the United States for sophisticated weapons systems and modernization in general, but South Korea now shoulders a major portion of its defense burden. ”

“ Pak's use of the unification issue to justify imposition of the most restrictive political controls the South has known since 1963 has its rationale in the fear that the talks with a seemingly less hostile North may weaken his people's resolve to keep up their guard. ”

“ The most immediate economic problems facing the Pak regime include inflation, a lagging agricultural sector, in adequate housing and other largely urban ills, and the growing inequality of incomes making for large, depressed sectors of the population. Basic services are still unavailable to many, particularly in the urban slums. Poor sanitation, industrial pollution, and a high incidence of disease and delinquency plague many Korean poor and detract from the success of industrial progress. ”

“ Determined young officers saw economic development as a way both to end Korea's crushing poverty and its humiliating dependence upon the United States. A military coup was briefly forestalled by the student revolution, whose democratic leaders appeared to share the young officers' ideals, though not their authoritarian methods. ”

“ What the military has managed to exploit successfully, however, is the energy and modern training of a younger generation free of the trammels of tradition. The youthful military leaders were quick to enlist the force and enthusiasm of the new postwar generation released in the 1960 student revolution but not effectively channeled by the Chang Myon regime. In his first years of power, Pak coopted the almost puritanical zeal for reform of his youthful cohorts. ”

“ Since prehistoric times nomads from Central Asia have collided with the more settled peoples on the eastern fringes of the Asian continent and invaded the Korean peninsula; some even pushed on and crossed the sea to Japan. Refugees from ancient dynastic struggles in China escaped to Korea, and were subsequently followed by invading Chinese armies. ”

“ The "cold war" confrontation between the United States and the U.S.S.R., and the lingering affects of the Korean war played into the hands of the rightwing extremists, whose whole stock-and-trade was anticommunism. Even moderate opposition parties were proscribed before they had any chance to leaven the political process. ”

“ As in China and Japan, the people of Korea have been generally tolerant of all religions except when they appeared to be linked to the political ambitions of foreign powers.
The Confucian code had the most profound impact of all the aspects of Chinese civilization borrowed by Korea. Not only did it serve to provide the pattern governing Korea's relations with China but it also produced the ethical foundation and the hierarchic framework for Korean society. ”

“ With Japan's defeat in 1945, the Korean economy virtually collapsed, having already been drained to a very low level in the course of Japan's long and increasingly desperate war effort; production fell 75% and 60% of the industrial labor force was unemployed. ”

“ They sought some systematic guide to action which would at least popularize their economic goals and help mobilize public support. Because of passions aroused by the Korean war, anticommunism was a cardinal tenet for the military—as it was for most older Koreans. ”

“ Seoul's 5-year plans have been dedicated to building up the South's economic strength so that it might become a "magnet" for the people of North Korea. Pak's recent reforms and constitutional revision specifically prescribe ad infinitum the fundamental goal of a universal effort to achieve national unity.
Following the Korean war, Seoul's official formula for Korean unification remained U.N.-supervised elections throughout the peninsula, a formula which P'yongyang has always rejected. North Korea has always refused to recognize any role for the United Nations in Korea. ”